The main objective is to dilate the upper airways by electrical stimulation of the 12th cranial nerve (hypoglossal), with a long term goal of developing a Neural Prosthesis for severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) patients. The device envisioned will remove the obstructions (upon detection) by activation of the tongue muscles through selective stimulation of the hypoglossal nerve. In a dog model, the images of the upper airways were obtained using a STORZ flexible fiberoscopy system (http://www.ksvea.com/fiberscopes.html) to evaluate the effect of stimulations and thus find the optimum stimulation parameters for maximal dilation of the upper airways(Huang and Sahin, Yoo et al. ) .

This project was conducted in collaboration with the Neural Engineering Center at Case Western Reserve University and funded through the Heart Lung and Blood Institute of NIH.